The Minister of the Environment, Joaquim Leite, once again denied that Inpe (National Institute for Space Research) has delayed the release of data on deforestation in the Amazon for the period after COP26, the UN conference on climate change.
“I got the contact exactly the same day you got the contact [com os dados]”, said the minister this Monday (22).
He also said that releasing the information before or after the conference would make no difference. “There was no time to point out weaknesses there. It would be irrelevant to point out this number sooner or later, because we were seeking multilateral consensus,” he said.
Leite participated in a press statement about the results of the COP26, alongside ministers Carlos França (Foreign Affairs) and Tereza Cristina (Agriculture, Livestock and Supply).
The INPE document with data from Prodes (Project for Monitoring Deforestation in the Legal Amazon by Satellite) attests to a devastation of 13,235 km2 between August 2020 and July 2021, the highest rate since 2006. The number represents an increase of 22% compared to the previous period.
Like sheet showed, Inpe concluded the data on October 27 and entered the report in the federal government’s electronic information system on the same day, but it was only made available on the last Thursday, November 18 — the period after COP26, which took place in Glasgow, Scotland, between the 31st of October and the 13th of November.
The Environment Minister also said that Inpe may have held the data out of “caution” in reviewing information on deforestation.
During COP26, the Brazilian delegation was criticized by climate activists for not disclosing Prodes, considered more accurate than another Inpe system, Deter — whose most recent data came out on the 12th, at the end of the event, but were not commented on in Glasgow by minister Joaquim Leite.
Leite once again stated that deforestation data are “unacceptable” and that the government will act in a “strong” manner against environmental crimes in the Amazon. Last week, the minister announced the expansion of Operation Guardians of the Biome.
“It is time to act on our main weakness, which is illegal deforestation,” said the minister.
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